


Choices

by katling



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Civil War Team Iron Man, Gen, Not Avengers friendly, Not Natasha Friendly, Not Particularly Sam Friendly, Not Steve Friendly, Pepper Potts will kill you with her shoe, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, That does make a difference, Though he barely says anything, Tony was a consultant, even though it's before civil war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-18
Packaged: 2019-02-12 17:15:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12964401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katling/pseuds/katling
Summary: The immediate aftermath of the SHIELD information dump, Tony has to make a choice - does he save the name and future of the Avengers or does he save all the innocent SHIELD Agents, support staff and their families? He can't save both and, really, his choice is obvious.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This partly inspired by Dont_call_me_Carrie's [The War is Far From Over Now](http://archiveofourown.org/works/10799406) (Seriously, read it! It's awesome. Tony is so oblivious to the fact that he's kind of taking over the world that you're not sure whether to laugh or facepalm... or both.) and partly by a random thought that bit me as I was lying in bed last night. Since the thought persisted until this morning, this had to be written.
> 
> 8 July 2018: Moderated comments turned on due to an influx of anonymous trolls.

Tony Stark had to make a choice – did he save the Avengers or did he save the hundreds of SHIELD agents and thousands of SHIELD support staff who _weren’t_ HYDRA? In the end, the choice was an easy one. The Avengers were superheroes – super soldiers, super spies, gods even. They had the ability to save themselves. The agents and support staff were just people. Vulnerable, ordinary people doing their jobs to the best of their ability, who had been betrayed not just by the HYDRA spies within their midst but by two of their own, whose response to the problem was overkill instead of careful planning.

So that’s what he did. Between himself, JARVIS, his suits and those SI staff who were brave enough to place themselves in danger to rescue people, Tony worked to save as many as he could. Agents, support staff _and_ their families. It was exhausting work, even with JARVIS’ help. Even with Maria Hill’s help. She’d been one of the first he’d picked up and she’d immediately turned to help once she realised what he was doing. She’d made it easier. The agents knew her and had responded to her commands, had trusted those Tony sent based solely on her words.

It took weeks to extract everyone, to reunite them with their families, to find new places, new jobs for them, to see to their medical and psychological care. (Because sometimes they hadn’t been quick enough and the extraction had not been from a shootout or a hostage situation but from the clutches of HYDRA and Tony knew that wasn’t something you came back from all rosy and clean.) Most of them asked to stay with Stark Industries. It left Tony a bit nonplussed and, of all things, bashful. Why would they want to stay? SI was just a tech company, not a super-secret spy agency. But apparently that was why they wanted to stay. They were a bit over the whole super-secret spy agency thing, especially when they found out why they’d ended up in so much danger.

Maria had laughed at him, actually _laughed_ at him – kindly, gently and more than a little baffled that he didn’t realise how much of _their_ loyalty he had won with _his_ loyalty. No one else had come for them. No one else had lifted a finger to help them, to save them and their loved ones. But _Tony_ had. And he hadn’t had to. He had no real association with SHIELD other than his ‘consultant’ status. Everyone knew that was just to keep him close so that the Avengers could have their toys and funding. He had no reason to save them or protect them and yet he had. The agents and support staff repaid that with their loyalty.

It took six weeks for Tony’s choice to bite. 

Floors in the Tower that had been planned for Avengers accommodation had been hastily repurposed into apartments for some of the former agents and their families. Maria, Pepper and JARVIS had quietly reallocated funding that had previously gone to SHIELD (and from them to the Avengers) into relocation expenses, salaries for the new SI staff and to pay current and ongoing medical bills. Tony was busy placating governments who were a bit spooked by sudden shootouts in their streets or by Iron Man armour flying into their airspace without warning or by sudden explosions in what had been thought to be abandoned buildings or just by the revelation that HYDRA wasn’t as gone as everyone had thought.

It wasn’t until SHIELD issued credit cards were declined and SHIELD funded bank accounts were empty that the bite occurred for Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanov. Sam Wilson still had his own credit cards and covered the bill but they had to stop then, unable to keep going without the kind of funding they were used to. Calls to Tony went to voice mail or were picked up by JARVIS who told them that ‘Sir is very busy. I will be sure to pass your message along to him at the first convenient opportunity.’

They turned up at Stark Tower. The huge A left from the battle of New York was gone and had been replaced by the eponymous STARK. It sent a shiver down their spines but they couldn’t say why. They walked into the foyer to be greeted by unfriendly looks and a hostile atmosphere. They didn’t know why until Natasha saw familiar faces glaring at her with hate and disdain. But the true cut didn’t come until they were declined access to the Tower and told to wait. They expected Tony, hurrying out to apologise for the mistake and usher them upstairs, but instead Pepper Potts walked out of the elevator. She was dressed in a business suit and wore power heels so high and so thin that they could genuinely be considered a weapon in their own right. Pepper walked on them as though they were the most comfortable of ballet flats, an intimidating message of its own right there.

“Captain Rogers,” Pepper said, cool and distant. “Ms Romanov.” She paused and arched an intimidating eyebrow at Sam. “I’m afraid I don’t know who your… friend… is.”

It was a lie. They could all see that it was a lie. She knew who Sam was but this was a power play and Pepper had all the power and she knew it.

“This is Sam Wilson,” Steve said. He looked nervous and uncertain. He always did around powerful women but Pepper had always gone out of her way to be soothing in the past. But this wasn’t _Pepper_ greeting them. This was _Ms Virginia Potts, CEO of Stark Industries_ , standing in front of them.

“Charmed,” Pepper said in a tone that said she was anything but. “How may I assist you, Captain?”

“Uh, we wanted to see Tony,” Steve said, still feeling knocked off balance by this unexpected version of Pepper that was in front of them.

“I’m afraid Mr Stark is busy,” Pepper replied. She offered nothing else, no reason, no excuse, nothing.

“It’s about the Avengers,” Natasha added when she saw Steve didn’t quite know how to proceed.

Pepper arched an eyebrow at them. “I wasn’t aware the Avengers were still active. They were a SHIELD initiative, were they not? SHIELD is defunct and I had not heard that the government had picked up the reins of the Avengers.”

They were all taken aback by that. “But Tony…?” Steve began.

“Mr Stark was not an Avenger,” Pepper said calmly. “He was a SHIELD consultant. His status was never changed. With SHIELD’s demise, all contracts are null and void. Mr Stark has no further obligations to either SHIELD or the Avengers beyond those of his choosing.” She gave them a wintry little smile. “And he has already made his choice there.”

Steve looked confused. “What?”

“Mr Stark is busy with the recent influx of employees at Stark Industries,” Pepper said primly. “Naturally, when he discovered how many innocent SHIELD agents, support staff and their families had been compromised and endangered by the release of information onto the web, he did all that he could to rescue as many as possible. They have proven to be remarkably loyal.” A small smug expression grew on her face. “Stark Industries will undoubtedly reap the benefit in the months and years to come.”

Both Steve and Natasha paled at the reminder of the consequences of their actions and Sam looked confused and worried.

“I’m afraid Mr Stark has his hands full,” Pepper continued relentless, “dealing with the various governments also affected by the SHIELD leak and the company’s planned movement into global security. Perhaps if you were to come back in a few weeks, once the furore has died down, he may have time in his schedule to meet with you.”

She paused then and pulled out her tablet. “I will, of course, let him know you dropped by to discuss the future of the Avengers but I doubt he has time for that right now nor would it be terribly appropriate. You’d be better off approaching the Secretaries of Defence and Homeland Security with the aim of gaining government funding and approval to continue. It would be highly inappropriate for a private company or individual to be funding a group like the Avengers.”

“But…” Steve sounded lost and confused. “Tony funded us before.”

“No, he allocated a certain amount of funding to SHIELD,” Pepper corrected. “How SHIELD chose to disburse that was up to them.”

Steve tried again. “He gave us gear.” 

“Gifts,” Pepper replied. “Generously given free of charge because he chose to do so.” Her tablet pinged and she glanced down at it. “I’m afraid I have a meeting. I will pass on your message to Mr Stark at the first opportunity. It was a pleasure to see you again, Captain, Ms Romanov. And a pleasure to meet you, Mr Wilson.”

With that, Pepper turned on her heel and walked back into the elevator, nor sparing them another glance.

Natasha looked around the foyer. The number of people there had grown and all of them looked unfriendly. She nudged Steve. “Let’s go. We can come back later or find a better way to get hold of Tony.”

Steve nodded, still looking like a lost boy, and he and Sam followed her out of the building.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so my muses have played ball on this one and decided to let me write more. This is something of a bridging chapter that is set right after the events of the first chapter so not a whole lot happens but there is a lot of indications or what may or may not happen in the future. :D

Tony couldn’t remember the last time he’d worked so hard for such a stretch. It wasn’t that he _didn’t_ work hard at other times but more that when he worked, it was because he wanted to. When he did days-long stretches in the workshop, it was because he wanted to. Very rarely did he do so because he _had_ to, because he had no choice, because the only other option was to know people died when he could have prevented it.

Between the hours spent trawling the internet, removing data, even hacking into computers to erase things that had been downloaded (and yeah, the less said about that, the better… his intentions were good but the legality of the actions was less so), flying all round the world to rescue people and then spending hour after hour in boardrooms and conference rooms, talking and talking and talking to calm people down and reassure them… he was _exhausted_.

When he’d _finally_ had a chance to sleep for more than about half an hour at a time, when he’d _finally_ been able to crawl into his very comfortable bed and collapse, he’d slept for the better part of a day and woken up hungry, thirsty and with cricks in his back that made him groan. A hot shower took care of the back and JARVIS had anticipated the hunger and thirst, bless him.

He was lounging on the couch, almost mechanically eating fried rice even though he wasn’t really hungry anymore and staring at… well, his brain wasn’t really registering much beyond ‘Disney’, ‘colourful’ and ‘why is that girl talking to a bear?’… when the elevator doors opened and the familiar sound of Pepper’s heels clicked and clacked towards him. He lolled his head back and gave her a rather tired and goofy smile.

“Hey, Pep, light of my life.”

Pepper looked amused as she collapsed on the couch next to him and removed her heels with a sigh. Tony tossed his food on the table and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She leaned against him with a sigh and they sat there silently for a moment as the movie played out in front of him.

“Why are you watching Brave?” Pepper finally asked. “I thought you hated deciphering Scottish accents.”

“Is that what it is?” Tony replied. “It was JARVIS’ choice. I’m just staring at the screen.”

Pepper’s smile was sympathetic. “Maybe you should go back to bed?”

Tony hummed then he realised that Pepper wasn’t _completely_ relaxed and that drew him out of his exhaustion a little. Not happily either because when he looked again, she had that look on her face that said she had something to tell him but she wasn’t sure she should.

He sighed and slumped back down. “Alright. What’s happened now? I thought we had everything under control?”

Pepper was silent for a moment then she gave a heavy sigh. “They turned up here this afternoon.”

“Who?”

“Rogers, Romanov and Wilson.”

The familiar urge to ask why and what could he do to help and basically bend over backwards to accommodate them flared briefly within him but it died just as quickly. He’d just spent the last six weeks cleaning up the mess they’d made without even an iota of help from them. In fact, Romanov had made things worse with her sneering efforts in the Senate hearing and Tony was still putting out brushfires from _that_. He’d have let them burn her at the stake but it risked dragging both Bruce, Thor and himself into the inferno and he was not going to let _that_ happen.

”What did they want?” he said sourly. “What new disaster have they caused?”

“I suspect they wanted to take advantage of your offer from just after the invasion,” Pepper said with prim disapproval. “Also to freeload off you and your money.”

A grin grew slowly on Tony’s face. “You sent them packing, didn’t you? J! Play it!”

“Tony,” Pepper protested but since there wasn’t much heat and a great deal of amusement in the protest, Tony ignored her and watched JARVIS’ footage of Pepper putting his former teammates in their place. It also included Romanov’s slightly ominous threat at the end but Tony set that aside for the moment in favour of teasing Pepper. “Look at you, Ms Potts. They looked like naughty schoolchildren being scolded.”

Pepper sniffed disdainfully, though she was struggling to contain her smile. “I was going to call them idiot thugs but I can work with naughty schoolchildren.”

Tony laughed and slouched down so he could rest his head on her shoulder. “You know, I kind of wish I could be a fly on the wall if they go and pester the Secretaries of Defence or Homeland Security.”

“Will they get through their security?”

Tony shrugged a little. “Probably. The Captain America name still holds some weight, especially with politicians.”

“Ugh, they’re going to get what they want from them, aren’t they?” Pepper said with disgust.

“Probably,” Tony replied, sounding amused. “But they won’t like it. They’ll be hedged in with conditions and so much red tape, they won’t be able to do much of anything. I mean, sure, what politician isn’t going to want the weight of Captain America behind him but he’s also not going to want to be embarrassed and those two Secretaries know damn well that the only reason things didn’t go poorly was because _I_ was cleaning up the mess. They know who _made_ the mess in the first place.”

“So why do anything for them?” Pepper paused. “Oh, of course. Propaganda.”

Tony nodded. “Captain America working for the security of the United States of America looks great. He’s very photogenic. Looks awesome on a poster, all noble and stern. Cap doesn’t know it yet but he’s about to go back to his dancing monkey days.”

“Are you sure he’ll approach them?”

“Yeah.” Tony grimaced. “He and Romanov and Wilson have been flitting here and there all over the place since SHIELD fell. No idea what they’re looking for, though JARVIS is on it. Anyway, they’ve run out of money, haven’t they? Can’t go flying wherever they want without money. Or my money anyway.” He straightened a little. “Oh hey! Did you…?”

“Snap up the Avengers name and all associated rights,” Pepper said with a smile. “Yes, I did. Then I mothballed them.”

“Good.” Tony relaxed again. “Didn’t want just anyone getting their hands on them. The Avengers are for world-ending events. I don’t want the name being misused or dragged through the mud.”

“You’re not planning on starting it up again?” Pepper asked.

Tony snorted. “Not unless we get another invasion or something along those lines. I might sound people out and get them in line but the Avengers were never meant to be a day to day thing, just for the battles that ordinary people can’t fight. Why do you think Fury wasn’t using the Avengers for any SHIELD missions and just folded Rogers into their pre-existing Strike Teams? He knew better than to sully the name with ordinary things.”

Pepper nodded then changed the subject, considering the matter closed. “Oh, you have two meetings tomorrow.” Tony groaned but she continued on relentlessly, “I couldn’t move them any more than I already had and you _will_ be going to them. Your security detail will be waiting for you at ten sharp.”

Tony grumbled and muttered then he suddenly frowned. “Wait… security detail? I don’t have a security detail. I have Happy. And I’m Iron Man. I don’t _need_ a security detail.”

“The former SHIELD agents disagree,” Pepper said, sounding rather smugly amused. “Especially after everything you’ve just done.”

“Wait… what?” Tony said, sitting up and looking confused.

“We employed most of them,” Pepper said. “Remember?”

“Well, yeah, because they needed jobs and we offered and they said yes for some reason.”

Pepper nodded. “Well, a group of them went to Happy and said they felt you needed a proper security detail. He laughed at them and said he’d tried that one in the past and it hadn’t worked. Then they detailed how _they’d_ work it and Happy liked it.”

“Wait, _Happy_ approves?” Tony said incredulously. “He never trusts anyone else.”

“He trusts them,” Pepper replied. “And he agrees with them. He’s worried about retaliation from HYDRA and from Rogers and Romanov.”

“Rogers wouldn’t…” Tony began, frowning.

“I agree,” Pepper replied. “I don’t think Rogers would step that far out of line but Romanov would. And HYDRA _definitely_ would.” She sighed. “I know you don’t like it, Tony, but just… let them do their jobs. Happy’s looked over their plans and approved of them so you _know_ they won’t restrict you. Happy wouldn’t let that happen. He knows you’d just make things worse if they tried it.”

Tony grimaced then conceded. “ _Fine_. But if they pull any of that usual security detail stuff, I’m outta there.”

“They’re former SHIELD agents, Tony,” Pepper said. “I think they know how to be discreet.”

“We’ll see,” Tony said reluctantly. He didn’t _want_ to make Pepper’s life more difficult than it already was but he also _hated_ being crowded in and restricted by security guards. “Anything else I should know about?”

“We’re getting some tentative queries from various people in the government, the FBI and the CIA.” A rather impish smirk appeared on Pepper’s face. “Apparently they’re a bit nervous about the fact that we now have sufficient personnel to effectively run our own intelligence agency.”

Tony raised an eyebrow. “Well, I wasn’t planning on doing that but now I kind of want to just to see what kind of reaction I get.”

“ _Tony_ ,” Pepper said in a reproving tone but it was the one that meant ‘I am very amused by what you just said but I feel I have to officially disapprove or I’ll just encourage you’ rather than the outright ‘Tony, no’ one so he wasn’t worried.

“Oh, come on, Pep.” Tony grinned at her. “You can’t tell me you haven’t fantasised about being M at _least_ once, especially now they’ve given the job to Judi Dench.”

“I will neither confirm nor deny that,” she said, unable to stop the smile from growing on her face. “Besides I always wanted to be James Bond.”

“I always wanted to be Q,” Tony said. “He had all the _real_ fun.”

“I think you might have actually fulfilled that dream,” Pepper replied.

“True,” Tony said with a grin. “I do make very cool toys. But none for naughty Avengers.”

Pepper raised an eyebrow at him then her expression softened. “And I think it’s time for bed for you.”

Tony wanted to object just out of principle. He had, after all, made a career out of doing the exact opposite of what people told him he should do. But this was Pepper and she was, as she nearly always was, right. He was exhausted and even if he went down to his workshop, he’d only fall asleep at the bench and wake up stiff and sore and cranky. Why do that when he had a perfectly comfortable bed?

“Yeah, okay,” he said with a long sigh. “Wake me up if the world starts to fall apart again.”

“Sleep well,” Pepper said, picking up her tablet so that she could very firmly remind everyone that for the next twelve hours, all calls for Tony were to come to _her_. _She_ would decide if it was earthshattering enough to wake up Tony.


End file.
